Waldo Vitamin review: daily contact lenses by post with added comfort

Bet you didn't know you could get supplements by eye

If you read our original Waldo review, you’ll remember that despite liking the service and simplicity of the contact-lenses-by-post supplier (and the fact that we didn’t have to deal with any humans in the process), our central-heating-and-screen-tired dry eyes just couldn’t handle the actual lenses.

Since then, the single-serving company has launched a second lens product: Waldo Vitamin. Like the originals, these daily lenses come by post in boxes of 30, and you decide how often you’d like them. They’re a little more expensive — £16 for 30 compared with £12 for the originals — but are designed to be more comfortable for dry-eyed folks like me.

The name alludes to the fact that the lens solution includes vitamins B12, B6 and E. Eyeball-based supplements, that’s a new one! But I’m happy to report that Waldo’s Vitamin lenses are far more comfortable than the originals for dry eyes, and while I still get some dryness (especially with central heating, air con, or long days), they’re definitely wearable for dusty-eyed me.

My usual choice is Johnson & Johnson’s 1-Day Acuvue Moist, which is a daily lens with extra moisture, and while I wouldn’t say Waldo Vitamin lenses perform as well in terms of keeping my eyes hydrated, there is a lot to be said for the convenience factor. You just tell Waldo your prescription and they post the lenses out to you. Yes, contact lenses by post schemes have existed for yonks, but they’re usually a fair bit more complex to set up and harder to change or cancel — this is more like a subscription box for your eyes. It’s for Millennials, basically.

Like the originals, the Vitamin lenses come in a recyclable box (which sadly still doesn’t fit through my letterbox), but Waldo has added a pinky-red stripe to both the box and the lens packaging so you can tell them apart. This is very welcome when you’re half-blind without your lenses in — you can tell which ones are which. The solution is also pink in the Vitamin lenses.

If you want to upload your prescription to the Waldo site, you can, but they will also just take your word for it, which is nice. I have no interest in ordering the wrong strength lenses!

If you’d like to try them for yourself, you can either go for the free trial of Waldo Original contact lenses (a month’s supply for the postage cost of £2.95) or if you know you’re a dry-eyer, pick up Waldo Vitamin contact lenses for £16 a box (don’t forget you’ll need a box per eye, so £32 in total). They have a base curve of 8.5mm and range from -12 to +4.